Chapter 117: Reorganization

Boom, boom, boom!

The Infinity’s orange-red headlights pierced through the dark night of the blizzard. The ice-breaking shield on the front of the train shoveled the thick snow to both sides like a hot knife through butter.

Neither zombies nor cars could stand against this immense horsepower!

Everyone held their breath as they charged forward.

In Car 2, Kiki kept her eyes on the radar system while simultaneously deploying two drones to observe the dark night.

“That big monster must have been buried in the underground city. It’s not chasing us.”

After speeding across the snowy plains for nearly an hour, as the number of zombies and obstacles around them dwindled, a sense of having escaped death began to emerge among the group. The heavy atmosphere on the train was broken by Kiki’s words.

“Really? We… we’re saved?” Zhao Yan, who had been paralyzed with fear on the floor the whole time, seemed to come back to life and asked with a tremble.

“Looks like it.” Chen Sixuan ignored them and walked to the cockpit. Seeing Lin Xian’s face covered in sweat, she said with concern, “It seems we’re out of danger. Do you want to take a break? The snow is too heavy right now, and visibility is poor. There’s a valley ahead. I’m worried that if the earlier earthquake triggered an avalanche, we’ll be in trouble if we rush through.”

Lin Xian nodded and began to gradually slow down the Infinity. “You’re right, but we can’t be careless. While we rest, I need to sort out the cars at the back, or they’ll slow down our progress.”

The frantic escape had left him exhausted. They had covered at least a hundred kilometers on the snowy plains, and he really wanted to stop and rest. Currently, behind Car 5 were two flatbed cars, followed by the Gemini 11R nuclear-powered electric locomotive, and behind that were two Cole-3 biological science research cars being pulled by temporary couplings, completely without any armor. This configuration was truly bizarre, a necessary measure taken in the rush to escape.

Hiss~

After the desperate sprint, the train’s iron wheels were scorching hot. Upon stopping, they met the snow and melted it, letting out hissing steam.

“How is it?” Lin Xian walked into Car 1, his expression still tense. Kiki was operating the drones, circling the train to maintain vigilance.

Phew…

Kiki, who had been tense all night, finally let out a breath. She licked her lips and said to Lin Xian, “I can’t say for sure about other things, but that big guy definitely didn’t follow us. Otherwise, with such a huge commotion, it’s impossible for us not to detect it.”

“You just reminded me.”

Lin Xian took out the Aether Value Detector and tossed it to Kiki. “Didn’t you get a blood crystal? Use this to check.”

“You got it.”

Kiki reacted, took out the larger anomaly blood crystal, and installed it. She then immediately activated it, and a strange energy wave emanated.

0!

To Lin Xian’s surprise, based on this number, there wasn’t even a single zombie in the vicinity…

“Could it be broken?” Kiki was also a bit surprised.

“Probably not.” Lin Xian knew best whether a machine was broken or not. He looked at the surrounding snowy plains. The blizzard was covering everything extremely quickly. Ordinary zombies would indeed have a hard time keeping up. They might be completely buried by the snow in a single night.

The silent Ding Junyi saw the device in Kiki’s hand and asked, “A level 2 anomaly blood crystal. You killed a B-class Nightwalker?”

Lin Xian looked at the number on the Aether Value Detector and finally breathed a sigh of relief from the shadow of the abyssal behemoth. He then looked at Ding Junyi’s calm expression and couldn’t help but ask, “In your emotional system, are the words ‘surprise’ and ‘fear’ missing?”

Ding Junyi looked at him curiously. “Why do you ask that?”

“If I screamed and acted scared like Dr. Zhao and Dr. Xu, would I receive more concern and protection from my peers?”

As soon as she said this, the atmosphere suddenly fell silent. Chen Sixuan, Kiki, and the others looked at Ding Junyi with strange expressions.

Zhao Yan and Xu Wen’s gazes towards Ding Junyi were complicated, seemingly with some dissatisfaction and speechlessness. It was clear that although they had worked with Ding Junyi for a long time, they still didn’t like her way of speaking.

Lin Xian was also slightly taken aback by her words. After a long moment, he replied, “Alright, back to the topic.”

He took the anomaly blood crystal. “By the way, how do you guys define these damn things? Why is your terminology different from the current Federal Phoenix Society?”

“It’s actually the same!”

At this moment, Xu Wen, whose complexion had improved slightly, spoke up first. “The current Apocalypse Federation and the original Federal Government started developing from the same Angel Project. After the dissolution, the research directions were more or less the same. Whether it’s Nightwalkers or anomalies, they both refer to these evil creatures. Our research on Aether Value is also basically synchronized. It’s just that the Underground City Project no longer receives widespread support in terms of scientific research…”

Lin Xian was a little surprised. “Your biological research institution also knows about the contents of the Angel Project?”

“Not entirely.”

Xu Wen’s mentor, Zhao Yan, looked at the group, her face tense as she said, “Right now, we are researching anything related to dark energy. Whether it’s zombies, degeneration, human anomalies, blood crystals, calamity plants, or metahuman abilities, they are all related to this energy in the darkness to some extent. But after the Federal Government dissolved, the Angel Project was also reorganized. Our underground city belongs to the Dawn Project, and we simply don’t have the massive metahuman and armed resources to obtain these blood crystals and calamity plants for our research.”

“The Dawn Project, theoretically, is no longer an official organization under the current Apocalypse Federation, but the leaders of the Dawn Project still believe they are the world’s legitimate government. Therefore, they deliberately use different names in some polar night research.”

“For example, Nightwalkers and anomalies mean the same thing. Currently, those with Aether Value fluctuations within negative 100 are called C-class or common-grade. The range for those exceeding 100 is quite wide. From negative 100 to negative 1000 are defined as B-class anomalies. This level 2 anomaly blood crystal can be found in such creatures. The sizes vary slightly. We currently believe this doesn’t necessarily represent the threat level or some kind of rank of the anomaly. It might also indicate how many humans this creature has devoured.”

“Devoured humans?” Kiki frowned. “I thought this Aether Value directly indicated the threat level of the anomaly, and that metahumans were also measured with such values, like Evolved-grade, Vajra-grade…”

Zhao Yan looked at Kiki with great surprise upon hearing this. “How do you know about that?!”

“That was a general measurement concept from the early stages of the Angel Project. It has some reference value.” At this moment, Ding Junyi finally spoke.

“Ever since the theory of dark contagion emerged, whether it’s the new Angel Project’s ‘Nightwalker’ organization under the Phoenix Society or our Dawn Project, the mainstream belief is that the Apocalyptic Polar Night is an evolutionary ritual covering the entire world. The vast majority of people fail to evolve and degenerate into zombies, human anomalies, or biological mutations. The Star Abyss gives birth to anomalies. Under this premise, with each passing night, more people will die or degenerate. At the same time, for every day they survive, the surviving humans will evolve and become stronger due to this power. This isn’t just manifested as some metahuman ability, but in an all-around way, such as cell activity, muscle potential, and stronger resistance to viral and bacterial infections…”

“Simply put, as long as you’re alive, you’re evolving. This evolution may be extremely subtle in the short term, but in the long run, by the time the second polar night arrives, the surviving humans will have definitely broken through their original physical limits.”

“This is also why the Federal Government split into three factions after the first polar night.”